Join us in celebrating the launch of David Parsons’ new poetry collection, Reaching for Longer Water. We’ll also enjoy live music from jazz guitarist Margaret Slovak.

David M. Parsons, 2011 Texas State Poet Laureate, is a recipient of many honors, including an NEH Dante Fellowship to SUNY Geneseo, the French-American Legation Poetry Prize, and the Baskerville Publisher’s Prize from TCU for an outstanding poem published in their literary journal, descant. He holds eight writing awards from Lone Star College System and was inducted into The Texas Institute of Letters in 2009.

Parsons grew up in Austin, graduating from Stephen F. Austin High School. After which, he joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve, where he served as a Squad Leader in a rifle company and later as a Recon-Scout Boat Team Leader. He attended The University of Texas and Texas State University, where he holds a BBA. After several years in business, advertising, teaching Marketing and coaching basketball and baseball at Bellaire High School, Parsons received his MA from the University of Houston’s Graduate Creative Writing Program. He teaches Creative Writing and Racquetball/Handball at Lone Star College-Montgomery. Parsons has four grown children and lives with wife Nancy, an award-winning Artist and Graphic Designer in Conroe, Texas.